The Black Bird

The Black Bird 'Conversation with a Spiritual Seeker' is a short book set out in a conversation format between the author and a woman called Sara, a self confessed seeker of spiritual enlightenment. The author is a teacher of mindfulness meditation at the South East Cancer Health Centre in Purley, and also a voluntary teacher at the Royal Marsden Hospital in South East London. The author brings into the conversation the parallels between the sometimes voluntary dissolution of the self on the spiritual journey and involuntary loss of self when faced with critical illness such as cancer. The book covers a wide range of spiritual concepts such as non-duality teachings and touches on Zen and meditation practices. Even though the book is less than sixty pages long it packs a hard punch and encourages the reader to ask some serious questions about exactly what the spiritual path is about and who is the one seeking it.